A Revelatory Essay.

Ruminations on the History of Immigration to these United States of America; and Proposed Solutions to the Current Blight of Illegal Immigration: Advice to a Strong Congress, Resolute President, and Magnificent Citizenry in Search of Peace – on the Occasion of New York's Immigrant History Week.

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Our land had always been wild, powerful, and bursting with resources. It drew first the ancient Asian wanderers who strayed across the Bering, descended into these lands and scrounged and fought in the dust throughout the centuries. Finally, the Europeans arrived. Dutch and English, noble emissaries of a clean and loving and righteous god, they set about liberating the descendants of the Asians from the eternal fires of Hell and the savagery of their earthly ways. And they began the process of taming the proud stallion that was the land, drawing it up to its full potential of productivity. They arrived openly, helmets gleaming in the daylight, faces shining with the glow of Goodness. They held legal deeds to the lands that they settled, as peaceful as lambs, with only one goal of aggression: to build the Greatest Nation the World had yet seen.

Now, in the early morning of the 21st century, America gazes out across the globe over which She reigns supreme – first in Freedom, first in Industry, and first in Godliness – and finds Herself assail’d from all sides, like the glorious Empires of the past, by those infidels jealous of all we’ve constructed in this land over some 400 years, the forces of chaos that with each passing moment draw us down towards entropy.

Like waves against a sturdy ship, they crash against us, threatening to swamp us in their desperation. The first major swell, mostly from southern and eastern Europe, washed upon us at the turn of the 20th century, and we managed to absorb the influx but at no small cost to our prosperity. Under the weight of those masses our Stock Market was pulled down into a crash. And still we suffer the descendants of those uncouth Irish and Greeks and Jews with their feasts of Saint Patrick, their gyros, their discoveries of polio vaccine, and other destructive influences. Despite those drawbacks we tried to welcome them, flinging open the ports of Our Nation.

Today, millions of Latin Americans, Africans, and Arabs swarm through our borders under cover of darkness or falsified documents, circumventing our laws and systems and constructing their own shadow societies underneath our own. Everywhere they rise against us. A multitude of Gibberish tongues taint God’s English. Turbans obscure mullets. Tacos threaten Spam.

In a more logistical consideration, our systems, engineered and balanced for our calm and peaceful citizenry cannot support such chaos. Already, our land and its resources groan under the weight of production.

We currently estimate between 3 and 200 million illegals live in Our Nation – working, eating, sleeping, and, most disconcertingly, breathing. They like to do many of these things indoors. That means they use electricity, as well as the oxygen in our air, which puts further strain on our already dire energy situation. (If you recall, when the Foreign controllers of oil supply turn against us, we must stockpile gasoline in the tanks of our SUVs.)

But let us not blame them, fellow people of the Good Book. The children of Babel, writhing in their dusky poverty, cannot help but lust after our City on the Hill, our bright beacon amidst the storm of the world. Alas, other nations have not built as well as we. And now, citing misunderstood definitions of History and Justice, their citizens demand entrée into our fair land.

We must determine a solution to this blight. Our leaders have spent several hours over the last year considering possible recourses, based on information gathered from deep in their own brains. Somehow, no satisfactory solution has arisen. I, too, have put my mind to the grindstone, as it were, and, after many minutes of thought I believe I have found our answer.

Shutting the borders of the country will not work. It will stymie our minute incursions into Mexico and Canada and unnecessarily delay travel plans. This problem requires a multi-pronged approach. First, those already here must conform to new regulations. If they have been here for more than 10 years (10plussers), they may continue as they are. Having accustomed them to our feeding off of them, we will let them continue to nourish us, build and clean our homes, landscape our lawns, and rear our children. Their already-born offspring will be trained at our new Labor Schools in the Midwest. Meanwhile, the adults will wear white face paint every day, go by the names John (men) and Susan (women), and speak English only, in the regional accents of their employers. They will also receive mandatory vasectomies and hysterectomies free of charge. Several prominent sociologists have assured me that these methods will improve the lives of our new neighbors and help them assimilate more rapidly into Our Nation.

Second, those who entered Our Nation between 5 and 10 years ago (5-10ers) will also receive the free sterilizations and scholarships, and, having shown their resilience to hard labor under difficult conditions, will be relocated to factory towns in our new Alternative-Energy Belt. There they will personally power the generators that let Our Country do its great work.

Third, those who entered fewer than 5 years ago will be sent to Detroit.

As for those arriving now and in the future, we will welcome them into cities we will erect for them and the 5-10ers in the Alternative-Energy Belt (where we will build the Labor Schools, as well), no great distance from the immigrants’ homeland of Mexico. (Just the slightest rumor of work will motivate them to move to the appropriate locations. We'll transport them by pickup truck from the corners where they gather. So desperate, they'll follow anyone anywhere, and at least these trucks won't be sealed.) To save costs to U.S. citizens, we will house our new neighbors in large, communal tents. There they can work, eat, and sleep and continue their non-traditional-family lifestyles of dwelling more than four people to a house, talking loudly, and, occasionally, showing genuine affection.

Men who are fit enough will spend the days manually turning turbines inside generators to create electricity. Women of child-bearing age will bear children. Young males will train in the Labor School before graduating to work at the generators. Young females will cook for the community and prepare to create more workers. We will provide them no garbage facilities based on the recommendations of several prominent anthropologists, who say that immigrants are used to living in their own waste, and depriving them of that would show an appalling lack of cultural sensitivity. Workers will, of course, do all construction in the Alternative-Energy Belt, including erecting tents for new arrivals and building the incinerators into which they will pitch any troublemakers and those unfit to work or procreate. Only carbon-based immigrants may be burned because our top engineers have developed a system to harness the burn-off and use the pure carbon dioxide to nourish new forests, which the immigrant children will plant.

As a final solution the problems of immigrant breathing, natural-born citizens of this country may continue to breathe both in and out, while all newcomers must exhale only.

Some may discredit my solution as soft, considering it provides for all needs of new immigrants: They have work, may stay with their families, may speak what Gibberish-tongue they like, and may live in a familiar environment of containment, filth, and chaos. However, we must and do care for them. My plan will also benefit the American people greatly. Think of it: No more rolling blackouts in California. No more reliance on foreign oil. No need to drill for oil in Alaska. Americans will breathe cleaner air -- and no longer will we face the consternation of determining who is an Illegal before shooting them: Just look for any non-white-faced, accented immigrant.

As we take our first strides into this new century, such rational solutions must continue to guide us, just as they guided our forefathers in their cotton-picking dilemma. The future looks ever brighter, America. It can be ours.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, history, Mexico, America.
(Painting by Ray Butler.)